18.8.08

without within

We've mentioned in the past how the Komarna Rebbe explains that we need to serve HaShem from the level where we are right now. That's what HaShem wants. In the fourth path in his sefer Netiv Mitzwotecha, he explains that HaShem hides Himself within the creation, within our lives. Now, if we knew HaShem was hidden, then He wouldn't be very hidden, would He? So instead He even hides the fact that He is hidden from us. (This is a teaching originally of the Ba'al Shem Tov)

The Komarana Rebbe adds that the geulah itself already begins with the recognition that HaShem is hidden from us. Once we know HaShem is hidden, the knowledge that He is with us, hidden or not, can give us so much excitement and happiness that we already break free of the bonds of galut.

This meshes nicely with another Torah from likkutei Halachoth, (hilchot birkoth HaShahar 3:5-8) in which Rebbe Natan explains that often we are convinced we have a very lowly soul and are incapable of serving HaShem which brings us great disappointment and great failures.

Not so, he explains, the soul of even the lowliest of Israel is such a lofty thing that entire worlds and endless cadres of beings depend entirely on this soul for their continued existence. Even the lowest soul is so much greater than every other created entity, it is a piece of infinite Godliness.

So, when we are low and think HaShem is far from us, and we have no ability to bring about His closeness, we only need to look within ourselves and remember that our soul is awesome in its grandeur and there in this place, at the root of our soul, HaShem is never distanced from us. Not even by so much as the thickness of a human hair.